Faculty Governance

Online Education Council

The Online Education Council (OEC), a faculty governance committee, is charged with overseeing the development and delivery of all online and hybrid courses and programs (aka "distance delivered" courses). The committee approves all distance delivered courses, often through an abbreviated curriculum process (See Procedures and Policies below). In partnership with the Provost Office, the committee ensures that all faculty teaching a distance delivered course has experience and/or training in online pedagogy. Training is provided through the Pew Faulty Teaching and Learning Center in affiliation with the instructional designers in the office of Information Technology. A full list of the OEC's responsibilities can be found in the Faculty Handbook at (2.01.4.j).

The Online Education Council (OEC) was charged by the Faculty Senate to “Make recommendations for peer review of hybrid and online courses.” OEC has completed that work and has developed a rubric that reflects best practices in online/hybrid education. The rubric is an amalgam of peer review research from a variety of sources, notably the Quality Matters Higher Education Rubric 2011 – 2013 Edition, the Penn State Peer Review Guide, and Chickering, A. & Gamson, Z. (1987). The rubric has been pilot tested twice by faculty with significant experience in online/hybrid education, and their feedback was instrumental in fine-tuning the rubric. OEC extends their appreciation to those faculty involved in the pilot tests.

The rubric is attached and available on OEC’s website, and will be used in the Foundations of Online/Hybrid Course Development class for training faculty in distance education pedagogy. OEC encourages all units to use the rubric for peer evaluation of all hybrid and online courses. Using a uniform peer review instrument and requiring peer review of all our distance education courses ensures that GVSU offers high quality rigorous and engaged teaching and learning in all our online and hybrid curriculum. OEC will be deliberating on recommending that the rubric be made a required element of the evaluation of faculty teaching beginning Fall 2018 and sending its recommendation to the University Faculty Senate. We highly recommend that all units begin using the rubric this fall.

The committee encourages faculty to send students to the Online Information for Students site prior to the beginning of the semester, where students can self-assess his or her readiness to take a hybrid or online course.

Faculty Development Opportunities
Several times each semester FTLC offers training on how to engage students in online and hybrid courses, with levels ranging from beginning to advanced. Please visit the Faculty Resources for Online Education website for a complete list of dates and times.